


Swear I Was Born Right In The Doorway

by imalwaysstraight



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Aglionby Academy, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Engagement, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, The Barns, pynch - Freeform, so damn domestic they make coffee and eggs, the title is from first day of my life because I am The Biggest Sap sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imalwaysstraight/pseuds/imalwaysstraight
Summary: And yet here is Adam, in his childhood home, hair sticking out at all odd angles, wearing Ronan’s old t-shirt, pouring cream into his coffee. And yet here is Adam, a man built on “although”s and “in spite of”s, starkly magical even against the impossible backdrop of the Barns. And yet here is Adam, who seems as though he has been here from the beginning, and who Ronan cannot imagine the end without.He has a ring.





	Swear I Was Born Right In The Doorway

“I swear to God,” a muffled voice mutters from the Barns’ walk-in pantry. “Sometimes I think you only keep me around to make you coffee.”

“You got me,” replies Ronan, rolling his eyes. “That’s the only reason I’ve ever dated you in the first place.” He leans back against the marble counter behind him, sighing at the slight stretch of his back that wants to force limberness into his sleep-stiff joints. The counter is entirely dust-free, of course, like the rest of the house, even though it’s been two months since he was last here for Christmas and eight years since his last sleepless post-demonic-apocalypse 3 AM cleaning frenzy.

The clean coolness of the stone through his shirt feels good against his back. It’s not quite the same as flipping over a pillow to find the cool side: it’s less of a remedy and more of a reminder of a blessing. Not meant to chase away the warmth, just to recall that he is warm, and was not long ago curled up next to a warm man, in a warm bed, in this warm house.

Ronan still finds it surprising, sometimes, even all these years after the night horrors, that he can think of a bed as a safe place. But with Adam--is there another option, really, with Adam next to him every night?

“So it was all a sham,” says the voice from the pantry again. “I knew it.”

“What can I say? I need your expertise. Can’t help that you’re so damn talented at everything, Parrish.”

There’s a loud _plop_ , the sound of something falling off a shelf that Ronan can’t see. Maybe a bag of oats, or rice. If they’re really lucky, it’s the Barns-designated contingent of Opal’s expansive rock collection.

She has more rocks with her at home in Boston, of course, where she is now. Ronan figures that even this early on a Saturday morning, she’s probably already busy with her head in a book, having entirely forgotten about Ronan and Adam having left her home alone for their week-long break from the city. For all the times Parrish has ever lamented about missing Opal’s childhood during their split while he was doing his undergrad at Columbia--and there has been plenty of moaning and groaning from Adam about it since they’ve gotten back together the summer before his senior year--it seems to Ronan that Opal is more like Adam each day.

Adam swears loudly. Perhaps it was the rocks that spilled.

“I take it back,” says Ronan, spreading his hands out on the marble experimentally. Yep, as clean as he thought. That reminder of magic fills his chest with the same inexorable thrum it always has. “You’re good at everything except getting the fucking coffee out of the pantry.” He remembers admiring Adam's hands furtively, back when even that innocence felt raunchy and unprecedented, and he studies his own pressed flat on the counter: the curves of his thumbs, the scars on his knuckles, the leather bands he used to need and now just keeps as a reminder of the past, his Aglionby class ring.

Well, not exactly a _class_ ring. And not exactly Aglionby’s.

Adam groans, finally extricating himself from the closet. “I’m sorry your _pantry_ is actually a literal labyrinth in disguise.” He turns to the counter across from Ronan, his back to him. For some reason Ronan still feels lucky to get the chance to steal a glimpse of Adam’s muscles through his bed-wrinkled t-shirt, even nearly a decade after that first kiss upstairs on his bed.

Ronan had found the ring not far from that same spot, actually, in the drawer of his old nightstand last night. He and Adam were rifling through his childhood stuff.

It was mid-August of senior year when they started talking about rings, summer light fading, Henrietta air still muggy but heading towards the tolerable crispness of fall, and Aglionby’s senior traditions in full swing. While they were still wrapped up in the flood of heady power that came with being at the top of the high school food chain, there was an announcement: class ring orders due by the end of the month.

“Don’t you want a ring?” Gansey had chided Ronan from the floor, where he lay sprawled out at the trailer-park-spotted edge of miniature Henrietta. “It’s tradition.”

“If you fucking love tradition so much, go bone it instead of Sargent.”

“ _Ronan_.”

Ronan turned around from where he was adjusting the speeding tickets carefully taped to his bedroom door, mostly to confirm that Gansey hadn’t actually had the aneurysm his tone of voice implied. “ _Dick_.”

Gansey sighed in a Gansey way. Ronan loved him for it in a Ronan way. “Won’t you at least consider it?”

“Consider what?” And suddenly all Ronan could see and hear was Adam, his smooth voice, his toned arm reaching out to push Monmouth’s second floor door closed. Sometimes it seemed like Noah was rubbing off on Parrish, the way he managed to sneak up on people.

Of course, Ronan had to acknowledge at some level that Adam’s habitual caution was habitual for non-ghostly reasons, but he tried not to think about it. It was too easy to get lazy with sympathy and let it lapse into pity, and he liked to think he knew Adam well enough to know that pity was the worst insult he could toss at him.

Adam’s skin was a deep brown, a reminder of the fading summer sun, and it launched Ronan’s mind into a flurry of images of blue skies and muggy afternoons and sweet fruit on a picnic blanket and Adam’s skin heated by the sun, the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled, the angle of his jaw as he stretched, the faint blush at curve of his cheekbone--

“I just don’t think it’s worth it for me right now,” Adam was saying to Gansey in a voice that was more Gansey-like than even Gansey himself. Measured, calm, calculated, poised. Shit, they’d been having a whole conversation that Ronan had managed to tune out while just fucking staring at Adam, point-blank. Fucking Parrish. Ley lines and psychics and goddamn Gwenllian aside, those cheekbones might actually be the death of him. “Are you, Lynch?” Adam asked, turning to him.

“Am I what?”

Something flashed across Adam’s face. Ronan couldn’t read it--his best guess was amusement--but he felt his cheeks threatening to defect from his brain and blush anyways. He already felt like an idiot, so obviously so far gone over a boy who'd never like him back, so it didn’t really matter. “Are you getting a class ring?”

Ronan snorted, trying to hide his relief at having an answer to the question. “No. The school already has my fucking soul, last thing I need is something to commemorate it.”

“ _Ronan._ ” Nope, never mind. Gansey was still the reigning champ for most Gansey-like.

Much later that night, while Gansey was reading a book on ancient Gaelic coventry and Ronan was lying a few feet away, trying to work up the motivation to go get another beer out of the bathroom/kitchen, Gansey had made a noise of what he might’ve called distinct discontent.

“What?” asked Ronan.

“It’s just--it’s kind of sad about Adam.”

“Those covens must be real fuckin’ fascinating.” Ronan lifted his head. “What about Parrish?”

“I think he wants a ring.”

Ronan scoffed. “Yeah, that is pretty sad.”

Gansey scoffed back, turned a page in his book absentmindedly. “Some people place a lot of sentimental value on material objects, particularly when that sentiment is pride. Have you ever considered that going to Aglionby might actually be something Adam is proud of?” He paused, as though he was waiting for a response that Ronan knew he wasn’t actually expecting. “Based on the way he acted tonight, it seemed to me as though he might like a ring to represent that. I suppose, however, that $800 would be quite expensive for someone on his budget.” He turned to Ronan. “Did it seem that way to you?”

Ronan rolled over onto his front and pushed himself up to go get a beer. “I dunno. I don’t fucking read minds. That’s Parrish’s job.” Gansey sighed.

Gansey cried (“only _teared up_ , Jane--and not in a sentimental way at all”) when he got his ring a month later. No one was surprised, particularly not Ronan, but it was still a fairly memorable night when they all piled into their booth at Nino’s with new hardware.

Only Gansey and Adam had bought rings, of course: Gansey because he probably wouldn’t have missed having one for the world, and Adam because Aglionby had contacted him on the last day of August to inform him that an “anonymous donor” had established a ring fund for students on heavy financial aid. Both Ronan and Adam knew the donor was not anonymous, but for once, Parrish didn’t seem to be putting up a fight.

Besides, what were a few thousand dollars to Ronan’s bank account for the expression on Adam’s face as he examined a physical representation of everything he had worked his ass off for? Gansey had been right. Adam was proud of himself. Ronan could see it in the way his eyes softened as he looked at his hand, spread flat on the grimy table. It stirred something in Ronan’s chest to see him finally wear at least a sliver of self-appreciation.

Noah had not bought a ring, naturally: he’d been wearing his for years. And Ronan--well, he hadn’t exactly bought it.

“I got one too, Dick,” he’d said with a smirk, pulling his hand out from under the booth’s table and interrupting Gansey’s outpouring of excitement to Adam about the future and the past and traditions and legacies and bullshit. “Look.”

It was the same shape as the other rings, the dreamed gold smooth and gleaming as it circled around his finger. The engraving had a tiny Aglionby crest, but where there should have been ravens, there were instead tiny hands flipping you off. The latin motto had been replaced with approximately the latin equivalent of “get the sticks out of your asses, motherfuckers” (a fairly clever translation Ronan was rather proud of), and “Aglionby Class Of Go Fuck Yourself” was scrawled in fancy script on the edges.

When he pulled it out of a drawer eight years later, Adam rolled his eyes just like he had that night in Nino’s. “I’d forgotten you did this,” he said, laughing a little at Past Ronan. “Typical.”

“Says the guy who still wears his,” Ronan had retorted.

Adam shrugged, but he looked down at his own worn and battered ring with the same softness as he twisted it around his finger. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Besides,” Ronan said, sliding the ring back on--he’d forgotten that he’d dreamed it to size itself to the finger of whoever put it on, which was convenient all these years after--and holding it out at arm’s length to admire the fit in the fast-fading evening light. “Gansey was right. It really does capture my Aglionby legacy.”

Adam smiled that same brilliant, clever way he always had, and Ronan’s heart jumped the same way it always had, and for yet another split second there in the second floor of the Barns, Ronan’s world was reduced to just the two of them.

 

* * *

 

 

Now, watching Adam execute that perfect pour-over he’d mastered at his job as a barista during college, Ronan wonders (as he often does) where exactly he would be without Adam Parrish.

Of course, the answer to that question is usually death in one way or another.

It isn’t that Adam has some sort of savior complex: he has always been his own man with his own problems, his own goals that need tending to. It was just that he has always been willing to be what other people needed, too. He didn’t have to do most of the things he did--didn’t have to sacrifice himself to Cabeswater, didn’t have to sit next to Ronan in the BMW the day his mother died, didn’t have to move in with him after college to raise Opal in Boston for the last four years.

And yet he had. For Ronan, so often thrust into roles he’d never asked for, this self-made man is a sort of magic all his own.

Which is 90% of why Ronan hasn’t proposed yet.

It’s been on his mind for a year or so now, always an undercurrent whenever he thinks about the future. He just doesn’t know how Adam would respond to someone else making that move. Even as he let down his guard about money, Ronan muses as he watches Adam open the fridge, Adam’s life has always been about living on Adam’s terms. A protective measure, no matter how unreasonable Ronan might find it sometimes. Still, Ronan couldn't bring himself to think about the chance--and there was a good chance--that he asked and Adam said no.

Parrish is his own man, after all. How could he feel good about giving that up, to Ronan of all people. As Gansey might say: in a strictly legal sense, isn’t marriage simply a surrender of independence?

And yet--

And yet here is Adam, in his childhood home, hair sticking out at all odd angles, wearing Ronan’s old t-shirt, pouring cream into his coffee. And yet here is Adam, a man built on “although”s and “in spite of”s, starkly magical even against the impossible backdrop of the Barns. And yet here is Adam, who seems as though he has been here from the beginning, and who Ronan cannot imagine the end without.

Ronan has thoughts like this just about every time Adam enters his mind, but this time, one key thing is different. Once it worms its way into his head, he can’t get it out. It opens up an opportunity too wide to ignore.

He has a ring.

For a split second, Ronan thinks about coming home to a place that is not-Adam. It’s a split second too long, and it takes just another split second for him to make the decision. What is it Adam always says? That, eyes and smile and music taste aside, the most Lynch thing about Ronan is his spontaneous tendencies. Or maybe the phrase was “impulsive asshole,” or something like that.

He has a ring.

By the time Adam has begun to turn around holding a very full mug of coffee, Ronan is already in the space in between them, down on one knee. Adam’s eyes widen. There is a moment where Ronan is waiting for him to say something, but then he remembers how this is supposed to work.

He pulls his class ring off his finger and holds it up, and Adam’s jaw drops open.

Ronan’s throat has suddenly gone dry, and it takes him a moment of moving his mouth to remember how to spit words out. “Adam, I--” He falters. This is terrifying. If Adam says no, there's no way the relationship will last: Ronan doesn't think he would be able to handle that, and though he might badly pretend things are fine for a few weeks, Adam would probably be pissed that Ronan would be so upset--he can see the fights now, both of them trying to pretend that with every word exchanged, they're not stepping on glass that’s already shattered--and oh god, here he is again, throwing himself too quickly into something that will only destroy him.

A voice wends its way through the chaos of his panic, smooth and sweet and slow like honey. His mother’s. “To love someone isn’t to decide to cling to one version of them. It’s to decide to grow with them. If you can support each other as you grow, you can do just about anything.”

Ronan steels himself. He thinks about the past decade. He has a ring.

“I know we haven't really talked about this, and I'm sorry for just springing it on you--”

“Ronan, what--”

“Wait,” he hushes Adam, and then it all just starts to spill out. “Just--I'm sorry we didn't talk about this before but I don’t think I can wait any longer and I need to know if this is permanent, because I think I've been in love with you since the eleventh grade, and I can’t imagine not seeing you at the end of every day, and I can’t imagine not waking up to you every morning, and I can’t imagine not fighting about, about stupid shit like who’s going to do the dishes or where I put the fucking coffee, and I don't know if you want to be with me for--for the rest of--but I--you have no idea how much I want this so please at least think about it, please.”

Ronan stops for breath. He realizes that he’s shaking a little bit, and maybe also crying a little bit, and that at some point he wound up staring down at Adam’s feet. _Awkward as ever, Lynch,_ a snide voice crows in his ear, but he pushes it away and forces himself to look up at Adam’s face. Haven’t they grown?

Adam sets down the mug of coffee. A long moment passes. Panic builds inside his chest.

“Well?” asks Ronan.

“Well what? You haven’t asked me anything,” says Adam. He’s managing to smirk, somehow, at a time like this. He always was impossible.

“Fuck off,” chokes out Ronan, half-laughing and half-crying, trying to wipe away tears without looking like he’s wiping away tears. “Fuck you. Fucking fuck.” Adam is laughing just a little bit as Ronan tries to clear his throat, and love, magic, whatever you’ll call it floods his chest. They were always one and the same with Adam.

“I can’t believe we’re this old,” says Adam. “I can’t believe we’re so--how did we--”

“Nope,” Ronan replies. “Nope, shut up. You don’t get to steal the moment, you impatient fuck. Let me finish having my moment.”

Adam scoffs and rolls his eyes, and Ronan can see the tears welled up. It doesn’t help the situation with his own crying. “Well, it’s not like you were gonna fucking ask it anytime soon--”

“Adam Parrish, will you marry me?”

“Of course.” And Adam is crying, just a little, and Ronan is crying, more than a little, and somehow they end up standing up and kissing. “Of course,” Adam breathes between kisses, holding Ronan’s face. “I love you,” he repeats, “so much. Of course.”

And yet. Although. In spite of all odds.

Ronan pulls away to get some air for what feels like the first time in hours, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. As his viewspan widens to include a world that is wider than just Adam, he’s surprised to realize that everything else still exists.

There is the Barns. There is the morning, golden and quiet and simple. Ronan wants to touch all of it, to make sure it’s still really there. You would think he’d be used to this feeling by now, he marvels: that this life is only just this side of a dream.

“Gross,” says Adam, handing him a paper towel from the counter. “You’re covered in snot.”

Ronan smiles despite himself. “Sorry. I think I had feelings for a second there.”

Adam pulls a face. “Disgusting. Why would you do that?” Ronan laughs a little, leaning into him, his chin on his shoulder. More quietly, lips pressed into the edge of Ronan’s tattoo, Adam asks, “So are you gonna cry at our wedding?”

Ronan can’t answer that.

Later, while Ronan is making eggs, Adam sips coffee that seems to still be hot. Typical Barns magic. He stares at his hand--the ring, Ronan’s ring--and smiles to himself, and Ronan gulps. He’s having a hard time keeping his eyes on the pan.

“I still can’t believe it’s your fucking Aglionby ring.”

Ronan barks out a short laugh, then remembers that conversation with Gansey in Monmouth all those years ago. The look in Adam’s eyes in Nino’s as he looked down at his own ring. “I’ll dream you one if you really want.”

“One what?” This has always been one of Adam’s favorite games: ‘make Ronan say the embarrassing thing.’ Pure torture.

Luckily, Ronan has been getting better at this game, slowly but surely. “Engagement ring.” He flips the omelette; it mostly comes down right, and he only has to pull one piece of it out from under itself. “Because we’re engaged.”

Adam hums in concession that they’ve tied at his game, takes a sip of his coffee. “You know, I think I’m okay with this. It’s unique, if nothing else.”

“No shit. And besides,” continues Ronan, “Now you’ve got two class rings. It’s like you kicked the shit out of Aglionby twice. You can have my diploma too, if you want.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “You dork.”  He pauses. “Would you have ever imagined that we would be here when you dreamed this thing?”

 _Here_ suddenly has a new definition: it’s no longer just today, but also tomorrow, and every year after. “Oh, I imagined it.” One day he’ll tell Adam about how a week after the kiss and the demon and everything, he woke up with a ring in his hands and just about hurled it out of the window. “Once or twice.”

“Just a passing thought,” says Adam.

“Of course,” says Ronan. He gulps.

“I never thought I would--this still feels unreal. All of it.”

“All that shit went down--” _and your happiness is the part you can’t believe?_ “--and we somehow lived through it.”

Adam sucks in a breath, and Ronan can’t not just stare at him, at this place, think of Opal-- remember all of their younger selves finding safety and warmth here if nowhere else. Their strategy meetings at this kitchen table. His 18th birthday. That post-apocalyptic campout in his backyard. Gansey’s smile, Blue’s laugh, Noah’s touch, Henry’s quips, Adam, Adam, Adam. The smell of smoke deeply satisfying against the cool November air. The bonfire they gathered for eight years later, this past fall. How everything had changed, and nothing had. Some stupid but reverent jokes about how time is a circle.

The Barns is magic independent of any one person, Lynch or not, Ronan thinks, still staring at Adam, in a warped sort of wonder.

He feels like he’s trying to bring this moment back from his sleep.

“You’re gonna burn the eggs,” says Adam--his _fiancé_ \--with a teasing smile. Ronan doesn’t particularly care, and for once, that seems like the right thing to do. For once, the knowledge that he is, in fact, awake is all that really matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As usual, I live for crit, so let me know what you liked and what you didn't-- kudos & comments are v much appreciated!


End file.
